Late last year, a screenshot started circulating on Twitter showing that Netflix had accidentally listed Australian horror film The Babadook in the LGBT category. Of course, internet users immediately hailed the film’s titular monster, Mister Babadook, as a gay icon.
The "B" in #LGBT stands for BABADOOK👌🏼😂 #nohate #lgbt #lgbtqiscool #DonaldTrump #lmao #FinalEpisode #netflix pic.twitter.com/0ak5fTG2Q0
— Meghan Hayes (@mlhayes1) June 25, 2017
Well, on Monday night, one of 4chan’s /pol/ users tried to troll a Twitter user who said Pennywise from IT was also gay and ended up getting trolled pretty hard himself. The actual exchange, which I saw on Twitter in real time, was pretty hilarious, although said Tweeter, @starkrhodey, deleted his initial tweet and changed his handle. The whole conversation is still available on a 4chan archive, though.
It’s pretty obvious that neither of these people are particularly serious, and even his fellow /pol/ trolls thought @starkrhodey got the better of his weak-ass attempt to troll. In the course of the back and forth trolling, @starkrhodey says “Pennywise and his boyfriend The Babadook are offended by you, sir,” and that’s all it took for a meme to be born.
That is the cutest picture of two horror icons I’ve ever seen.
And of course the backlash began soon afterwards because we can’t have nice things and just laugh at the absurdity of dumb things. That’s clearly too much to ask for, we’ve got to examine everything from every angle to make sure no one gets their feelings hurt by people saying The Babadook and Pennywise are a gay couple, which is clearly meant to be a serious statement on LGBT rights and not people having dumb fun on Twitter.
i feel like yall were hyped up on the babadook is gay meme and decided pennywise was also gay without thinking of if u should do that
— cleo (@kakyoink) September 14, 2017
I want to love the Babadook/Pennywise as queer thing but honestly "monsters who terrorize children BUT QUEER" makes me feel exhausted.
— gin. (@showupforthis) September 13, 2017
pennywise: the manifestation of evil who torments and murders children and a gay man
y'all: LOL GAY ICON JUST LIKE BABADOOK 🌈🌈🌈 IM SHOOKETH— DAWNYAAAN 😈💕 DigiDemon VTuber (@dawnyaaan) September 14, 2017
Just let people have fun, Internet. Sometimes, once in a while, just let people have fun without lecturing them on why their fun is badwrongfun.